Forgotten
by aaliyahcrosses
Summary: "They moved me from your memory/I'm still there in your soul."—Gabe Goodman, Aftershocks, Next to Normal. Haibara Ai was eight years old when she woke up in a hospital with both her memories and a certain bespectacled friend gone.


Haibara Ai was eight years old when she woke up with no clear memories of who she was. She had to relearn everything: her name, the name of her friends, how Hakase found her.

Haibara Ai was eight years old when her memories disappeared, along with a boy called Edogawa Conan who was supposedly one of her closest friends.

She was also eight when she first met Kudou Shinichi. The high schooler was rather friendly with them, and talked cheerfully with Ayumi and Genta and Mitsuhiko. He rarely ever talked to her, but he would always stay by her side. She would always catch him staring a hole through her head. It was really weird, but she didn't really mind that much. Maybe he was just interested on the fact that she had amnesia. After all, she heard he was a detective. It's good for a detective to know different things from different topics, right?

The first time she'd called Mouri Ran "Ran-neechan," the dark-haired girl smiled so widely. She was so glad about it Ran decided to treat the children, Sonoko and Shinichi to the café.

It was then Haibara decided to call Shinichi "onii-kun." He didn't take it well. He stood up all of a sudden, and walked away without any excuse. None of the table occupants could think of any reason why he did, except Sonoko who said that, "He probably realized he was getting older. Haha!"

She was already eighteen when she graduated high school, as the top in her class. Granted, she was also the eldest, but everyone agreed that Haibara Ai was a genius.

Kudou Shinichi, then a member of the police force, had shown up after the ceremony, handing her a Fusae-brand clutch bag and saying, "You don't have to be scared anymore. They're gone."

It was a cryptic message, but Ai didn't mind. After all, he found out the gift she wanted the most without her even telling him. "You're really as observant as people say, aren't you, Kudou-san?"

He had merely laughed and told her, "I just remembered well," and left it at that.

She was twenty-four when Agasa-hakase died. She had been so pale and sickly, but she never cried. It was only a week after, when Shinichi found her wandering the house, almost like a ghost. He was talking to her asking her what she'd do now, when it hit her that the person who adopted her and was her family, was now forever gone.

She had cried all night and woke up the next day drained. Shinichi had left her at some point during the evening, obviously when she was already asleep. It was the same day she had entered the laboratory in the basement that the professor told her never to enter. It was the same day she found out about Miyano Shiho, and who Haibara Ai really was.

She quickly confronted Shinichi about it.

"But she waited for you! And I made it happen! You're you! You're Shinichi... Why didn't you... Now Ran's married—"

"Do you even remember? What happened that day?" He interrupted her. "I told you I love you."

There was a glasses-clad boy, who smiled painfully at the drug given to him. It was the cure. And then him trembling because he couldn't do this, not without her. Because he loved her.

She remembered the regret, as her vision swam around because of the drug she had taken earlier before he even came. She thought he had chosen the other (he always did, anyway), and so she instead chose to forget.

Haibara Ai could still taste the bitterness of the drug she had taken, sixteen years ago. A drug she developed alongside the cure for the apotoxin, because she knew, the time would come she would have to forget.

"Is it too late?" she asked, hesitantly.

"I waited for you too. Guess it was just karma."

And she'd given a short laugh as she felt tears welling up in her eyes again, while she hugged him tightly and he embraced her back. He ushered her inside the house, closing the door behind him as he did.


End file.
